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We Had Our Fingers Crossed

Julian Sanchez | 1.8.2004 4:58 AM

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The Treasury Department has apparently published the email addresses of thousands of people who submitted public comments electronically, despite having promised earlier to keep such information private. The reason? It was too much of a hassle to remove all the personal info.

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NEXT: "Nothing, Nothing, Nothing"

Julian Sanchez is a contributing editor at Reason.

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  1. Bruce Tobin   22 years ago

    What, they can't find somebody to write a 5 line Perl script? That's pathetic.

  2. Overlord   22 years ago

    I'm shocked! You mean that you can't trust a goverment agency to keep it's word? What's the world coming to?

  3. Shultz   22 years ago

    I know!

    Instead, they should FORCE people to provide an e-mail address BEFORE they can post their comments.

    Like this site.

    P.S. Why do we have to do that?

  4. richard   22 years ago

    Hunh??? The government lied!!!!!!???? Incredible.

  5. Randall Loffelmacher   22 years ago

    Shultz-
    Hilarious posting. I imagine the reason it is required on this site is a legal issue. Oh how I wish we could just have a moratorium on passing of laws. That's precisely what we need. I'd also like to see one ostrich elected for each Senator or Representative elected. Those ostriches are mean SOBs, just the kind of individuals we need to watch over the shady government officials. Either ostriches or starving-hungry lions. Yeah...lions oughtta do the trick.

  6. Doesnt really work, does it   22 years ago

    Shultz,

    I think the requirement is to prevent people from posting scathing personal insults and then hiding anonymity, you asshole.

  7. David Koresh   22 years ago

    So, not only is the Agency Formerly Known as the ATF a bunch of murderers, but they're liars, too?!?!

    Shocking.

  8. Paul   22 years ago

    Reminds me of the old saying we had in the Navy: "You play ball with us, and we'll jam the bat up your ass."

  9. dhex   22 years ago

    well, that's not very sporting.

  10. Rick Barton   22 years ago

    From the Declan McCullagh piece:

    the department... assured people that e-mail addresses, home addresses and other personal information of individuals would be removed first.

    And they expect us to trust them with the powers of the Patriot act??

    If a business pulled this, the PR ramifications and legal liability would be huge. The federal government is of course immune to these concerns.

  11. Gene   22 years ago

    Paul,

    Were you in the Navy 1958-1962??? That was a favorite comment we used then.

    Was stationed Kingsville,TX NAS, Memphis, TN, Barbers Point,HI and then Midway Island. Never could get a shipboard posting.

    As for printing out email address information, nasty thing to do. Lots of the people involved will have to change their address due to spam and such now.

  12. Stephen Fetchet   22 years ago

    I thought everybody here was in favor of spam... this will certainly result in lots of it. Cheerio - it's the market at work. Government screws up, and the market offers you a bigger penis by way of compensation. Everybody's happy, right?

  13. Larry   22 years ago

    At least the government could have the class to do what they forced everyone else to do with health information. Mail everyone a two pound document to sign so they would know what rules the ATF is violating.

  14. kuros   22 years ago

    not trying to play armchair lawyer but unless you sign something that states your email will not be sold/transmitted/used do you really have a leg to stand on or any recourse?

  15. Grumpy Bob   22 years ago

    You know, I work in a bank. Not too long ago we all had to jump through hoops to comply with the Fed's most recent privacy act, and here the Treasury Dept. goes ahead and publishes private information it had promised to keep private. So the Federal gov't doesn't have to comply with the same rules it forces on everybody else?

    I am shocked, my friends. Just shocked.

  16. flunkey   22 years ago

    Considering the amount of spam I had to clean out this morning (from a corporate, not personal, account), I think that the people responsible should be shot.

  17. Will Spencer   21 years ago

    These beauracrats need to be *fired* for such an amazing display of incompetence, arrogance, and unethical behavior.

    One of the duties of the free press is to call the Treasury Department every day and ask for a list of names of employees terminated for this failure of technical competence, ethics, and the arrogant attitude with which it was perpetrated.

  18. Paul   21 years ago

    Gene --

    I was in the Navy right after you - 1962 to 1968, on submarine tenders (Proteus (AS-19) and Hunley (AS-31)), mostly in Guam and Charleston. But I'm glad to learn that such a great expression has a long and venerable history!

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